Word: softspoken
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...would be a long-awaited accession for Gambino, a softspoken, courtly man who came to the U.S. in 1921 as a stowaway from Palermo, Sicily. In a brotherhood where "respect" is achieved by assassination, there is a strong caste system. For years the Gambinos were disdained by the other Mafia families. Gangsters called them "the degenerates" because Carlo married his first cousin and his brother Paul married another cousin. There were a number of stories that neither Carlo nor Paul had ever killed anyone-which is ample reason for them to be held in contempt-and both were suspected...
With the slaying of two other lesser mobsters in New York last week, full gang warfare seemed imminent. The new image of Mafiosi as softspoken, smart-dressing businessmen, who shun such crudities as murder and torture as oldfashioned, seemed to be fading. Perhaps the Mob was taking those gory movie scripts about itself too seriously. At any rate, it was exposing the cruelty and ruthlessness of racketeering. Offscreen, murder is brutally final. Indeed, Gallo did not like parts of The Godfather. He told a friend that he thought the death scenes seemed "too flashy...
...prematurely silver-haired, courtly and softspoken, was chief of operations during the Six-Day War, and later reshaped the Israeli army for the static "war of attrition" proclaimed by Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel Nasser in March 1969. Bar-Lev had his answer ready: a 100-mile line of forts, dug into the Suez sand, which weathered massive artillery assaults until the two sides agreed on a cease-fire last year. Meanwhile Elazar, also a monumentally calm commander, was backing up his chief by subduing the Arab fedayeen in the occupied territories...
Under the guidance of softspoken, spectacled Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, the fund's international president, W.W.F. has launched 550 rescue projects for threatened species in 60 countries. In addition to exotic animals like the wombat, the organization has also helped more common species. Last year, America's largest furriers union reached an agreement with W.W.F. to stop accepting pelts taken from spotted cats, thus ensuring that the big felines would be able to hold their own in the wilds. The members have even prevailed upon some of the world's major airlines to stop promoting safari...
MILESTONES Married. Candy Mossier, 51, the softspoken, blonde Georgia belle who, after her sensational 1966 trial on a charge of murdering her 69-year-old millionaire husband Jacques Mossier, was acquitted along with Nephew Melvin Lane Powers; and Barnett Garrison, 32, an electrical contractor; she for the third, he for the second time; in Houston...